The president's Sept. 6 speech on the CIA detainee program showed once again that this administration does not give in to pressure. Unfortunately, this pressure is to conform to completely reasonable international human rights standards and it is being exerted by everyone from the U.S. Supreme Court to human rights organizations.

In this speech, the president finally admitted to the not-so-secret program run by the CIA where suspected terrorists are held in prisons outside the U.S. and are questioned using an 'alternative set of procedures.'

Numerous reports from many different organizations have claimed that these alternate procedures include forcing prisoners to stand and thereby preventing them from sleeping for more than 40 hours, slapping the prisoners to both get attention and cause pain, and placing prisoners head first in water for anywhere from seconds to minutes. For as many times as the president may claim that the United States does not torture, to me and others, that sounds exactly like what those alternate methods are.

The good news is that on the same day the Department of Defense released a new Army Field Manual which strictly forbids these practices, but of course it will not apply to any future CIA operations. This unwillingness to make the CIA adhere to the new ban just goes to show the administration will not completely rule out torture.

The president then went on to say how 14 suspected terrorists will be transferred from CIA custody to Guantanamo Bay where they will be tried under the same military tribunals that the Supreme Court said 'violate both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions.'

These tribunals fall short of the American justice system in a number of ways: they allow evidence obtained under torture, classified evidence may be used but does not need to be presented to the defense, only defense attorneys designated by the Secretary of Defense are allowed, and it requires only a two-thirds majority to convict. There is absolutely no reason to subject anyone to these unfair tribunals.

The criminal justice laws were designed to protect not only non-citizens but also U.S. troops and civilians. By violating both our own laws and international human rights standards, the Bush administration is setting precedence for the same violations to be used against U.S. citizens in other countries.

Before the President can resume the tribunals or the CIA detention program, he must get legal clearance from Congress. On September 14 a bill was recommended by the Senate Armed Services Committee that thankfully lacked many of the most severe violations of human rights laws that the Bush administration wanted, but the final form of the bill remains to be seen.

No matter how you look at it, the methods desired by President Bush are not in the U.S.'s best interest, and to me it comes to the simple idea that the ends never justify the means. There will be a push to get a final bill through before Congress adjourns in October, so if you are at all interested in this issue please call your Senators and Representatives and let them know what you think as soon as possible.

Jason Kramb
Senior
Physics